Sunday, November 07, 2004

Anger Management for Outlook 2003 ...

Have you ever sent an e-mail you knew almost immediately you would regret? (More importantly, does this happen often?) If you've ever wondered if your e-mail client could protect you from yourself, here's a handy tip you should consider: You can create a rule in Microsoft Outlook 2003 that defers sending messages for a few minutes after clicking the fateful Send button.

Follow these steps:

From the menu, Click Tools > Rules and Alerts > New Rule to bring up the Outlook Rules Wizard.

Since the rule will apply to all sent messages, click "Next" to skip selecting a set of conditions. A dialog box may appear asking you to confirm that this is what you want to do.

Check Defer delivery by a number of minutes. Down below, click on the underlined "a number of" text and select the number of minutes you thinks it takes for your sanity to previal. Note: if it actually takes a few days, you might have a bigger problem than Microsoft Outlook can help you with. A couple of minutes usually works for me.

If you think you may want to apply some exceptions to this rule, click Next to apply any additional properties. Meeting invitations are a common exception - We rarely flame people we'll be meeting with shortly. Otherwise, click Finish. You're done!

Later ... In that fateful moment when you come to yourself after sending an e-mail, rush to your Outbox and delete the message before it goes. Wow! You may have just saved your career.

Resume breathing.

Mild-mannered e-mail writers need not apply.

My experiences also include accidentally sending e-mails before I finished writing them (doesn't that always look dumb?) Share your story below about "that message" you wish you could go back in time to erase ...